'Does he ever get tired of putting his foot in his mouth?' Badenoch accuses Burnham of 'doing Russia's dirty work' with claim Putin interfered in Brexit vote

Kemi Badenoch accused Andy Burnham of doing 'Russia's dirty work' by reopening Brexit wounds as they clashed at Prime Minister's Questions today.

The Conservative leader lashed out after the Prime Minister used a podcast interview to say he had been told 'clearly' on arriving in Downing Street that Vladimir Putin had meddled in the 2016 vote.

It sparked a row in which Mr Burnham was accused of lying about the issue by his political opponents, before he eventually conceded that the result is legitimate. 

It led to an astonishing intervention yesterday by the MI5 Director General, Sir Ken McCallum, who said while there had been attempts to influence the vote Britain shouldn't 'play into our adversaries' hands' by rerunning the issue. 

Mr Burnham today told MPs it 'is a matter of fact' that 'hostile actors have been seeking to interfere in our democratic process'.

But Mrs Badenoch asked: 'Does he ever get tired of putting his foot in his mouth?'

At Prime Minister's Questions, Mrs Badenoch told the Commons: 'The Prime Minister has had a busy few weeks tying himself in knots, explaining why national security shouldn't come at the expense of social security, bumbling into a row still ongoing about Manchester City.'

She added: 'He spent the last 48 hours trying to unsay that Russia influenced the 2016 referendum, when we all heard him say it. Does he ever get tired of putting his foot in his mouth?'

Mr Burnham replied: 'I am glad that she's raised my comments because it gives me an opportunity to say to the whole House how I intend to lead this country. We have lived through a decade of division and we know that hostile actors have been seeking to interfere in our democratic process – that is a matter of fact. We need to call that out and look straight at it in a way that the party opposite didn't do.'

Mr Burnham said Mrs Badenoch had, when she was a minister, stood at the despatch box and said she had 'not read the Russia report', adding: 'It's because they didn't want to see it – they wanted to look in the other direction.

'I won't do that, I will draw a line, I will defend our democracy, and I will lead this country forward with positivity, unity, and hope in the next decade.' 

This weekend Mr Burnham told The Rest Is Politics podcast: 'I asked the question, coming to Downing Street, well was there interference in the 2016 referendum from Russia? I've had the clear answer that yes, there was.'

Last night Sir Ken said Russian media and Russian trolls had clearly attempted to influence the vote.

Speaking at MI5's Thames House headquarters, the spymaster said: 'It is a matter of public record - including in Select Committee reports published in 2019 - that in 2016, before you get to any secret intelligence, it is openly on the record that Russia Today and Sputnik, and other Russian media organisations, came in pretty strongly around the time of the referendum.

'It is also a matter of open-source record that there was a second line of interference attempted through trolls.

'I agree strongly with what the Prime Minister said yesterday.'

But he continued: 'It is kind of up to us how far we allow our adversaries to divide us. I'm a little bit worried that if we all stay in this debate for another few days, the Russian trolls who didn't appear to do all that much at various points over the years, they'll be delighted they are front page news once again despite the comparative unimpressedness of what they do at all points along the journey.

'I'm a little bit interested that we don't play into our adversaries' hands by making these trolls look 10 feet tall. That is not our experience.' 

Mrs Badenoch claimed Sir Ken had had to 'slap down' the PM, adding: 'Either the Prime Minister knew what he was doing on that podcast, trying to undermine the 2016 referendum, or he opened his mouth on a matter of national security and said the first thing that came into his head.

'So, does the Prime Minister agree with the director general of MI5 that talking up Russian interference was a mistake?'